She had taken to reading the newspapers attentively, and had followed the investigation closely. She made herself some sort of a vague promise that should Clavering be exonerated she would marry him, but if he should be proved a scoundrel she would not. But she was already inwardly convinced that he was guilty. He told her, the first time he had a chance, of Baskerville’s interview with him—told it with such humor, such raciness, such enjoyment of Baskerville’s uncomfortable predicament, that Elizabeth, though little given to merriment, was obliged to laugh.
“Of course,” he said, “they will be married shortly. Baskerville has a fine position here—not showy, you know, but the right sort. He has a comfortable fortune, too. Gad! at his age I would have thought myself as rich as Rockefeller if I had had as much. Now it wouldn’t keep me in automobiles. I shall provide for Anne handsomely, and besides she will get everything I give her mother, which will be in itself a handsome fortune. Oh, I’m not mean about giving money to my family. Just as soon as Élise and Lydia get the cash I intend to give them, when I get the divorce, they will both be sure to marry some foreign sprig. They have a whole forest of them here and at those foreign watering–places. I shall give Reginald quite as much as he will know how to use, and that will still leave me enough to make you one of the richest women in the world.”
Then he redoubled his urging that Elizabeth should come to the grand musical; but she refused his proposition with such violence that he thought it prudent to say no more about it. General Brandon, however, had accepted with pleasure, and quite looked forward to the event. But the very day before, he came home from his office with a bad attack of rheumatism, and was forced to take to his bed.
In the afternoon of the next day, while Elizabeth was sitting by her father’s bedside reading to him, and occasionally giving furtive glances at the great masses of palms and magnificent flowering plants being carried into Clavering’s house, a card was brought up to her. It was inscribed, “Mr. Angus McBean.” So the solicitor had carried out his threat at last. Elizabeth’s heart gave a great jump, and then seemed as if dead within her. But she maintained some outward composure, and said she would see the gentleman in a few moments; and telling General Brandon that it was an acquaintance of other days, she left the room. She went to her own room to recover herself a little before descending to meet the man through whom Hugh Pelham had persecuted her ever since her husband’s death.